How to Take Down a SEAL (in 500 words or less)
by Neocolai
Summary: Short oneshots involving mishaps for Steve, whether it involves kidnapping or a slip in the kitchen. Mostly humor, some angst. (No pairings) Prompts are welcome!
1. Dish Deterrent

**Just a couple notions that came to mind when thinking about all the scrapes Steve could land himself in throughout the series. The goal is to express the idea in 500 words or less, although a few oneshots may exceed that limitation. Prompts are awesome! Enjoy!**

**(Obviously I own nothing, nor am I garnering anything save sleep deprivation and a cricked neck for writing these stories.)**

* * *

"What were you thinking? Don't answer that, you mule-headed, stubborn neanderthal. Just keep your head down. Sign there says twenty minutes. You can't read it, of course - your eyes are all red and puffy. Shut up and keep your face in the water."

Steve didn't say much. Probably too busy sucking it up so he could take over the crime scene, like it wasn't obvious he felt like his eyelids were raking over hot coals every time he blinked. Danny awkwardly clapped his shoulder, ignoring the growl of warning at the unexpected contact. _No need to worry,_ he thought, shifting his posture so that they almost bumped hips, reminding Steve of his presence even as he steadied both hands around his gun. _I'll keep 'em covered until you can shoot twelve yards without winging the little old lady with the soap bucket._

"Well, good news is, we stopped the delinquents who thought robbing a charity car wash would turn a profit," he said nonchalantly, shooting an aggrieved look at the fiery-eyed grandma who was chastising the stony-faced HPD officer for sending in cops without uniforms. "Saved them about thirty quarters and a bucket of soggy sponges. Could've been worse - could've been a lot better, on the other hand. Remember what we discussed about running off without talking to anyone? Don't you agree this whole fiasco could've been avoided?"

The rather pointed oaths came out garbled, but the implications were not lost in a series of obscene hand gestures learned only in the Navy. Danny shook his head. "Honestly, I cannot believe I let Grace hang out with you. If it was my grandmother brandishing the liquid Dawn you'd be choking on it right now."

Who knew a bucket of dirty dish detergent was all it took to take down a water-resistant SEAL.


	2. Egg Over Ego

"Look, I just mastered this little trick. I saw it on Youtube, the guy actually juggles these little babies and then wham! Right in the…. Okay, not that time." Flicking shell crumbles and yolk into the garbage bin, Jerry raised one slimy finger before Tani could slink away. "Wait. I got this."

"McGarrett's not going to be thrilled when he finds an empty carton and egg whites strewn all over the floor," Tani warned, wincing in anticipation as her coworker snagged three more smooth ovals from the carton. Ranging from pale green to speckled brown, they practically screamed Free-Range, Organic. Five dollars a dozen, if rising prices were to be judged fairly.

"Trust me, I got it this time," Jerry said earnestly, waving the eggs in demonstration before tossing them in the air. He managed to snatch the first two before the third bounced off his fingertips. With a wet splat the brown shell crumbled, just as Steve's stocking feet appeared in the doorway.

"Look, I know we agreed on team breakfast, but Danny's a real bear when he's waiting for food and….."

Tani clapped her hands over her mouth, screaming an incomprehensive warning just as Jerry let the last two eggs slip from his hand. Before the final victims could strike the tile Steve was sliding, raw yoke plastering his sock, six-foot-one frame smacking the floor in a helpless flurry of momentum. Two gorgeous orange yolks exploded on his face, just as the spatula flipped and spiraled and smacked down on his chest. A horrified Jerry jumped three feet, scrambling to apologize while McGarret raised himself up on one elbow, orange goo dripping down his chin. Whirling towards the sink, Tani pressed her hands over her face, willing herself not to collapse in hysterics.

Unhurried footsteps thudded before Danny looked in placidly from the doorway, leaning against the frame as McGarret wiped handfuls of translucent slop from his face. "That's my cue to start the car, isn't it? 'Cause it looks to me like we're breakfasting at the hospital cafeteria again."


	3. Choking Kills

**This one proved to be slightly longer than the goal of 500 words, but there was too much detail to cut back. ;) Thank you to Prislynn, Guest and DeprLugia for reviewing! **

* * *

Danny didn't think anything of it when he heard the first mild cough. People tended to chew their food first, while animals like Steve preferred to scarf it down in three giant chomps. Disgusting.

"Y'know, you really can put a guy off his lunch," Danny complained around a mouthful of garlic shrimp, putting down his fork in distaste. "Didn't your mother ever teach you about the twenty-chew rule?"

There was a disgruntled wheeze on his right, followed immediately by a garbled hack. Frantically clapping Danny's shoulder, Steve leaned over the table, pounding a fist against his sternum. His face was nearly as red as the shrimp on Kamekona's truck.

"What, are you choking now?" Both eyebrows soaring in concern, Danny reached out uncertainly, debating whether or not it was necessary to intervene. Not that he didn't look for an opportunity to slap his partner after the misery of his daily existence, but if this escalated no way was he doing mouth-to-mouth. "Steve. Steve, nod your head if you can't breathe."

An exasperated waggle followed by increased hissing for air confirmed that yes, Commander I-Can-Jump-Into-Sandbins-I'm-Cool was currently suffocating over a piece of shrimp. "Only you," Danny sympathized, clapping his partner half-heartedly between the shoulder blades. He winced as the gagging became more frantic, increasing force until he thought for sure he might deflate Steve's lungs along with his larynx.

"Here, let me show you how it's done." Without further preamble Kamekona pushed Danny aside, gripping Steve by one shoulder and fairly wailing into his back. Danny grit his teeth as three solid clobbers practically bowled the SEAL over the table. One last thwack and a chunk of half-chewed pink flew across the table, pinging off of Kona's plate and rolling into the sand behind her. Rolling her eyes, the brunette flicked aside her fork.

"See?" Kamekona announced, pulling Steve upright as the man gasped, practically cross-eyed with disorientation. "Here at Kamekona's, we do our own emergency rescue."

"Does that include surgical operations?" Danny posed as Steve leaned over, grimacing with the after-spasms of contracted muscles. "Cause I think my partner's gonna need a couple vertebrae replaced."

"For a price," Kamekona said, far too serious for Danny's liking.

"No, just kill me first," Steve implored, reaching unsteadily for that unreachable space between his shoulders.

"In that case I would've let the shrimp have at it," Danny retorted. "Wouldn't that have been a lovely epitaph: 'Man dies by eating shrimp.' Aren't seals supposed to be more evolved than their prey?"

"Hey, I wouldn't have let him die," Kamekona reassured, thunking a glass of water down in front of Steve. "Bad for the business, Brah. The moment someone reports a health risk over the food, then we got all kinds of trouble." He nudged Steve's shoulder and announced, "I'm still charging you for the life-saving measures, though. Ten bucks."

"See, that is why we eat like normal people," Danny chastised, all compassion vaporized as Steve plopped his head down on his folded arms. "You take a bite, you chew, you swallow once you know it's all going to go down. Then we don't have to worry about ambulances and higher insurance premiums and people posting videos on twitter."

"I get it Danny, shut up," Steve mumbled into the crook of his arm.

Huffing, Danny left the nimrod to wallow and pushed his plate away. "You see, this is why I can't take you anywhere."


	4. Shark Bait Ooh Ha Ha

It was a guaranteed outcome: Steve lost a little skin, Danny lost a few more hairs. He'd be grey before fifty and it was all Super SEAL's fault.

"This is exactly why smart people avoid the water," he censured, batting Steve's hand away before he could poke at the towel pressed over his leg. "You wanna do something useful? Call 911."

"No one carries a phone on the surf," Steve grouched. He leaned forward, too interested in his own grisly injury for Danny's curdled stomach.

"Would you stop that!" Danny snapped, prodding him back. "You're missing six inches of skin, okay? Do you need visual proof before you start bleeding out in front of the tourists?"

"It was just a bump," Steve protested, looking perplexed at the amount of red soaking the towel. "Shark wasn't even interested in a nibble."

"Do you remember third grade marine biology?" Danny said tartly. "Sharks have skin like sandpaper. If you try to pet one, you will bleed!"

"Who tries to pet a shark?" Screwing up his nose like a grumpy otter pup, Steve leaned back on his elbows, finally acknowledging that blood loss often resulted in shock for the normal population.

"If I explained it in literal terms, you would try something equally stupid next time you go scuba diving," Danny retorted. He looked over his shoulder, sighing in relief. "Ambulance is here. Do I need to ask you to cooperate and not terrorize the nurses?"

Mystified as a team of EMT's filed down the sandy slopes with a stretcher, Steve shook his head. "It was barely a nudge…."


	5. Mirror Mirror

**Thank you to two Guests and SteveMcGarrettLover for reviewing! Love everyone's reactions!**

* * *

"It's not that I'm not sympathizing, it's just, usually when people talk about carsickness they mean crawling out and throwing up by the side of the road."

"I'm not kidding, Danny. Pull over."

"It's seventy-eight degrees and low humidity, and you haven't touched a bottle of water since we started out this morning. Logically, one might assume that you're merely dehydrated and trying to use that as an excuse to kick me out of the driver's seat."

"Danny, I will open this door and you can peel me off the asphalt if you don't pull over right now."

"Fine, because obviously we're falling into the paltry excuses from therapy and I would be a terrible partner if I did not listen to your request." Sighing, Danny edged into the treeline and shifted into park, glowering at the cars that zoomed by. "There. Happy?"

Steve merely squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his forehead like Charlie did when Stan let him hunch over a tablet for too long. Maybe Danny felt a shred of compassion. He wrangled out the water bottle, frowning when Steve peeked one eye open and grunted, waving it away.

"C'mon, you're clearly dehydrated," Danny coaxed. "As long as we've worked together you've never _actually_ been sick in the car. A few swallows won't make you puke."

"Headache," Steve mumbled, practically grinding his head back into the rest. "Don't need it."

"Look, I know I seem like a thoughtless, uncaring person, but I actually researched the symptoms of motion sickness after our little chat," Danny said. "Dizziness, yes. Lightheadedness, nausea, maybe in more serious cases shortness of breath - you've never exhibited any of these symptoms."

Steve didn't grace him with an answer. He fumbled around in the glove compartment, finally pulling out a pair of dark shades.

"Is this gonna be a two-way argument?" Danny protested as his partner leaned back, pressing his forehead against the window. "Cause I'm starting to feel like you view me as the narcissist and that's not how communication works."

"We're on a fifty mile stretch of open road," Steve finally said laboriously. "The sun is directly overhead, and every hubcap is reflecting through the windshield. If it answers your question, I feel like someone just put three rounds in my brain." He patted around him until he snagged the water bottle, peeling off the cap and taking three gulps of tepid liquid. Grimacing, he laid his head against the window again.

"So you concentrate on the road, you're too busy controlling the environment, the sunlight doesn't bother you," Danny guessed. "Just like Rachel tunes out the _Beetles_ when she normally can't stand it."

"Something like that," Steve mumbled. His eyebrows bunched together before he glanced sidelong at Danny. "Who hates the _Beetles_?"

Rolling his eyes, Danny flipped down the visor on the passenger side. "So we wait here a few minutes, blast the AC until you cool off, then switch places."

"It's a migraine, Danny," Steve stated, although the churlishness had left his voice. "I can't just turn it off." He plastered on a queasy smile that looked more like a serial killer who realized he'd left his favorite knives at home. "Just keep driving. I won't ruin the car."

"No, you'll just sit there looking miserable until we reach the hotel," Danny retorted. He eased back onto the road nonetheless, flipping through the radio stations until he found one that seemed suitably tacky for Steve's tastes. Lowering the volume a tad, he tossed the water bottle into his partner's lap. "Just concentrate on the music. We're almost there."

A soft snort told him he'd been forgiven for this small oversight. "Thanks, Danno," Steve murmured.

"When we get back we're having a discussion about the differences between motion sickness and light sensitivity," Danny prompted. "And I'll be filing a complaint with the therapist about your excruciating taste in music."


	6. No More Jumping Monkeys

**Thank you to LibraryElf and Ctypotter for the feedback! Your reviews are inspiration!**

* * *

To be fair, monkeys in zoos were allowed to climb everything. That still didn't give the Animal on the squad any excuse for the freeform spiderman act which resulted in a sprained ankle and a golfball sized knot on his forehead. Yes, he took down the perpetrator. Broke the guy's collarbone in the process. Also inexcusable in Danny's book.

"Stop moving," Steve mumbled, peering to the left of Danny's shoulder. "Can't tell which one of you is real."

Danny was sorely tempted to snap his fingers under SEAL's nose, just to prove his legitimacy, but he was a good friend who demonstrated care and attentiveness for other people's feelings, and he was well aware that his partner was holding back a flinch every time Junior raised his voice. Tossing your brain against your skull tended to incite some unpleasant symptoms, and he very much doubted that Steve would appreciate a bout of motion-induced vomiting. (He, for one, would prefer to avoid any projectile launches until his shoes were safely outside the target circle.)

"Did we get'im?" Steve asked for the third time in as many minutes, looking dazedly at the children's picture books scattered around him.

"Yes, we did," Danny answered patiently, "And the next time we hunt down a perp in the library, you're banned from the adult section. If that shelf had been any higher we'd be scraping your brains out of the rug. Every parent within six hundred miles would sue HPD for traumatizing their children."

"Why're we here?" Steve wondered, plucking at a copy of _Olivia Saves the Circus_. "Does Grace have a book report?"

Sighing, Danny tossed away the icepack which the librarian had pulled out of the staff freezer, looking longingly at the open door where the EMT's had yet to appear. "You know what, my daughter is sixteen and you're more scrambled than a squirrel playing road tag. _Hey, can I get a medic in here!"_


	7. Pothole Plothole

"It's a very thorough report," Duke acknowledged, looking in turn from Tani to Junior as though waiting for them to acknowledge the elephant in the room. (Although to be fair, a seal was a more accurate alliteration. A notably absent SEAL, that is.)

After a moment of uncomfortable silence the HPD officer prompted, "Where's the rest of it?"

"Sir, everything regarding the perp's arrest was detailed in the report," Junior calmly evaded.

Duke leaned back with an aggrieved look. "Three officers handled this operation, and only two are standing in my office right now. Where is Commander McGarrett?"

Tani glanced out the window, refusing to take ownership. As if she hadn't innocuously snapped a couple photos before fire and rescue came in.

"Commander McGarrett is currently indisposed on official business, Sir," Junior mumbled.

Chilling dark eyes snapped his way. "Excuse me?"

"What he means, Sergeant Lukela," Tani said coolly, "Is that Commander McGarrett fell backwards and got himself stuck in a manhole, which required an entire fire team for extraction. The doctor says he'll be sitting on ice packs for a week."

"He gave us strict orders not to mention it to anyone," Junior said, muffling a chuckle under an ill-timed cough.

"Well then, you can tell the commander that here at HPD, we don't withhold necessary information, particularly regarding matters of health and safety!" Duke stated, tossing the report onto the desk. "Rewrite it."

"Right away, Sir," Junior answered. He shuffled the creased papers and nodded at Tani, preparing to call McGarrett with an apology once the factual report was listed. Tani swayed in place, her gaze locked on Duke's stoic visage.

Glancing at the young woman's reddening, mirthful expression, Duke looked sidelong at the report and asked covertly, "Did you get pictures?"


End file.
